Applied Materials CEO: We want to be the most trusted partner

“We have great visibility, and as long as we have that eight quarter lead time from our customers, which is unprecedented, versus what we had seen in the past, I have high confidence that Applied Materials will be able to respond,” says Gary Dickerson, Applied Materials CEO.

With its latest state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Singapore now operational, Gary Dickerson, Applied Materials CEO believes the company is not just ready to deliver more miracles to the market but also continue to innovate to support the growing demands for its chips to support the increasing compute and AI needs globally.

Applied Materials is already leading some of the fastest growing segments in the semiconductor industry. This includes having over 80% of the growth in wafer fab equipment in leading edge semiconductors.

“If I look at where we're today and where we're going for the future, the AI-driven segments are going to grow at the fastest rate for sure. And I think that for ICAPS (Internet of Things, Communications, Automotive, Power and Sensors) market, what we've said is that it will grow kind of mid to high single digits. So, in terms of where we're focused for sure, the biggest focus is in those areas that are going to enable the AI innovations of the token per second per watt, the energy efficient computing, but we also have innovations on edge AI and ICAPS,” he said during a press briefing at the launch of the facility in Singapore.

Dickerson explained that Applied Materials is not just innovating the area but will deliver products that will expand its total available market significantly in the next 24 months.

“We're going to deliver innovations in major segments that improve our ability to compete. I feel actually great about our innovations that we're driving and our ability to support those customers in those areas where we can support them. And again, that segment (ICAPS) is not going to grow fast, but it's still an important segment where we're driving tremendous innovations,” Dickerson said.

When asked about US export curbs to China, Dickerson pointed out that the Chinese market is more focused on ICAPS, which he feels will not have much impact of the operations in Singapore. In February 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a US$252 million settlement with Applied Materials for illegally exporting chipmaking equipment to China's top chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.

Becoming the most trusted company

For Dickerson, Applied Materials is the most enabling company, which is why it continues to enable critical AI compute innovations. At the same time though, Dickerson believes that the Applied Materials is focused on being the most trusted company.

“For us, these architectures are enabled by our innovations. With over 30% growth in our semiconductor business, we're really in a situation where we have multi-year strong demand from all of our different customers. So, for us, we've made investments, to be able to double our operational capacity. And again, with agentic AI, you're going to have more demand for CPUs and DRAM going forward. And so, the compute demand is going to continue to go higher in the future. We don't want to be a limiting factor as our customers are ramping going forward,” he said.

Dickerson also mentioned that Applied Materials had anticipated that compute demand was going to increase at a pretty high pace.

“We're in these co-innovation relationships 10 years out in the future. So, we have incredibly high visibility of what is going to happen in the future and where to invest in Applied Materials. And I have extremely high confidence that this compute demand for AI is going to continue to grow at a high compound annual growth rate,” said Dickerson.

With the aim of wanting to be the most trusted partner, Dickerson added that the company wants to have a lot of agility. This includes having business continuity in operations, so they can build the products customers need in a very flexible way so that they are able to meet customer demand going forward.

For Dickerson, the eight quarters lead time is important because Applied Materials needs lead time with its supply chain, which is becoming more complex.

“From the COVID time period, where we had a lot of constraints at all tiers in the supply chain, we've made incredible improvements inside Applied Materials. We have great visibility, and as long as we have that eight quarter lead time from our customers, which is unprecedented, versus what we had seen in the past, I have high confidence that Applied Materials will be able to respond,” he said.

As such, Dickerson believes that supply chain lead time is really important.

“Our operations are not a constraint. We have really incredible teams here in Singapore with great culture and great talent. We're going to have a thousand employees next year, and we have the same really great talent in Texas. And we have smaller manufacturing facilities in other regions, so I believe we will be able to deliver. We just need that eight quarter visibility in the supply chain,” he concluded.